Ghosts of New Year

Ghosts of New Year

“I’ve seen two of them,” I replied and jumped behind the fridge. There was nobody there.

Such a shame. Such a shame.

The voice ricocheted around the room as though the last lonely echo fleeing a subterranean tunnel.

“John, is that you?”

I had no idea why I said it because I’d only ever known one John and he’d died in a car crash aged seven. There was just something about the voice that made me panic, set my heart all a jitter; it unnerved me.

I wish I could show you the future as I see it in colours and sound and cascades of gold. I can’t, though. No, not yet.

“Look whoever you are!” I growled in as fearsome a tone as I could muster. “Who are you? Where the hell are you? And get the **** out of my house!” I let rip a tirade of unprintable expletives and kicked at the dog who scarpered away into the street through a door I was sure I’d left locked.

You… Here… No… The voice rasped against my ear in ice-cold breaths.

That instant my New Year’s Eve celebrations ended; I feared for my life. My tough guy act dropped to the floor like a two tonne crystal paperweight that shattered my everything into a billion tiny shards. I searched a room I’d spent ten years in as though never having found the door, located it, and then fled.

I shot through the kitchen into the living room and out the same door Sparky had scrammed through. I hurdled the dead rose bush, slipped and skidded over the gravel and out into the bleak city street just as the cathedral bells chimed twelve and a double-decker bus blew its horn. I’d never forget the driver’s look as a half-naked man with a glass of unspilt claret still clutched in his hand splattered against his windscreen.

This is your future, came the words of the dead, but only then did I realise I spoke them.

Reblogged this on A Whispered Wind and commented:
A ghostly tale that keeps you in suspense until the great twist at the end.
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Happy New Year, Richard. Thank you for this another, beautifully written post. I must say – knowing the future, sounds like a real disaster – but the end of old, ‘worn-out’ year and the beginning of the new, promising one is a good moment to reflect a bit on the past and the future, thinking what it shall bring this year. I hope it’s going to be inspired and that we will all have the courage to dream big. If you’ll look at my recent post you’ll find many reasons why some things are worth waiting for and how Adrien Brody woke up one day and decided to become a visual artist (he’s now selling his artworks in one of the NYC Galleries). I love to think that New Year is exciting and full of magic -so let’s do our best to keep it this way till the rest of 2017.